Densely tufted perennial; culms 13–52 cm. high, slender, erect or ascending from a decumbent base. Leaf-blades narrowly linear, flat or convolute, up to 19 cm. long, 2–5 mm. wide, densely to sparsely pilose, finely pointed; ligule 0.3–0.5 mm. long. Inflorescence 2.5–10 cm. long, a “bottlebrush”, oblong, with the spikelets densely crowded; pedicels 2–8 mm. long, villous, usually unbranched but the lowermost occasionally carrying 2 spikelets. Spikelets 6–13-flowered, wedge-shaped, the florets increasing in size upwards, 8.3–21 mm. long, loosely imbricate with the slender sinuous rhachilla often visible, pale green tinged with purple; glumes linear-oblong, subacute, the lower 1.2–3 mm. long, the upper 2.1–3.6 mm. long; lowermost lemma lanceolate in profile and acute, successive lemmas becoming progressively more linear-lanceolate and acuminate-aristate, the longest 3.8–7.3 mm. long, thinly membranous or sometimes cartilaginous in the lower third, the acuminate tip of the upper lemmas drawn out into an awn up to 2.6 mm. long; palea 1/3–1/2 as long as the lemma, the gibbous keels often protruding from the base of the floret. Caryopsis 0.75–1.3 mm. long. Fig. 74/1–8.